I hadn't intended to ignore this blog for this long but events overtook me. I'm pledging to do better in the future.

The American Thinker           August 18, 2011           Obama: The Affirmative Action President           by Matt Patterson (columnist - Washington Post, New York Post, San Francisco Examiner, and others.)     Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job?  Imagine a future historian examining Obama's pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite mostly unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a "community organizer"; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote "present"); and finally an unaccomplished single term in the United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions. He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as a legislator. And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama's "spiritual mentor"; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama's colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: How on Earth was such a man elected president?  Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal: "To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers, would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass. Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass -- held to a lower standard -- because of the color of his skin." Podhoretz continues:  "And in any  case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also so articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?"  Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon --  affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves. Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the back. Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow. Liberals don't care if these minority students fail; liberals aren't around to witness the emotional devastation and deflated self esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative action. Yes, racist. Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin -- that's affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn't racism, then nothing is. And that is what America did to Obama.  True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, Obama was told he was good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; he was told he was good enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre record in Illinois ;  he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at all in the Senate. All his life, every step of the way, Obama was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary. What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time Obama speaks? In 2008, many who agreed that he lacked the executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama's oratory skills, intellect, and cool character. Those people -- conservatives included -- ought now to be deeply embarrassed. The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of cliché’s, and that's when he has his teleprompter in front of him; when the prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all. Not one original idea has ever issued from his mouth -- it's all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has  failed over and over again for 100 years. And what about his character? Obama is constantly blaming anything and everything else for his troubles. Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess. It is embarrassing to see a president so willing to advertise his own powerlessness, so comfortable with his own incompetence. But really, what were we to expect? The man has never been responsible for anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly?  In short: our president is a small and small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job.  When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense. It could not have gone otherwise with such a man in the Oval Office .

Rethinking Command & Control - LawOfficer

Rethinking Command Control

The National Incident Management System (NIMS)

Raymond E. Foster | From the April/May 2006 Issue | Friday, March 31, 2006

12

Command Staff

You can handle many emergencies with an IC and four subordinate commanders. You can add an information officer for the media, a safety officer to monitor safety conditions and a liaison officer as the on-scene contact for other agencies.

FEATURED IN LEADERSHIP

• Critical Incident Stress Management Team
• Ego Management
• Candid Camera…or Not?
• The Denise Amber Lee Bill
• Tough Times—or Opportunity?
• Going Under
• Set the Example

"An army is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. Every change in the rules which impairs the principle weakens the army." William Tecumseh Sherman

Problems in the field do not improve until someone takes charge. From the simplest radio call to a major terrorist incident, a situation doesn't move from chaos to normalcy without a leader. Thinking back on your career, you can likely remember situations that spiraled down because a lack of leadership caused poor communications and inconsistent missions, and jeopardized safety.

Clearly, a law enforcement agency's response to an incident greatly improves when you establish strong leadership on scene. Through real-life situations, we have learned hard lessons about tactical leadership concepts, such as unified command, span of control and the necessity of good followership. Sometimes, law enforcement isn't the leader at the scene of an incident, but it's almost always part of the larger mission. By exploring how tactical command concepts have developed and examining some of the key components of the state-of-the-art response methodology, we can improve our on-scene leadership skills.

Developing a National Standard

In 1991, in Oakland, Calif., the Oakland Hills Fire devastated the East Bay Hills. Before it was over, 3,400 homes were destroyed, and one police officer, one firefighter and 25 civilians were killed. Although California's Statewide Fire and Rescue Mutual Aid System was in place, the response of hundreds of first responders (police, fire, medical and public utilities) was uncoordinated, primarily because of different organizational structures and command systems. By 1993, in response to the Oakland Hills Fire, California's legislature mandated the use of the Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS), which incorporates the Incident Command System (ICS).

In 1994, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) adopted SEMS as its command and control paradigm. Throughout the 1990s, many agencies, such as the U.S. Coast Guard, began to adopt SEMS/ICS. The 9/11 Commission noted the emergency response to the World Trade Center (WTC) was much different from the response to the Pentagon. In addition to the WTC first responders confronting a much more difficult mission because the disaster occurred hundreds of feet above their heads, the command and control response in New York was also less coordinated than the response in Washington.

Washington, D.C., is rife with overlapping and contiguous first responder agencies. But before Sept. 11, many D.C. agencies participated in a SEMS/ICS disaster-response simulation. The agencies had adopted and trained in SEMS/ICS. The 9/11 Commission Report compared the Pentagon response with the WTC response. It noted the use of SEMS/ICS by agencies responding to the Pentagon had enhanced coordination, speeded rescue and recovery operations and saved lives.

The formation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) included folding the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into the DHS bureaucratic structure. Based on recommendations from the 9/11 Commission Report, the DHS adopted SEMS/ICS as the National Incident Management System (NIMS). NIMS is now our nation's method of first responder command and control. Indeed, after Jan. 1, 2004, adoption and training in NIMS became a mandatory requirement for DHS grant funding. In other words, if your agency has not adopted and trained in NIMS, you can lose points in the grant-funding review process. Perhaps more importantly, if your community faces a major event, a lack of standardized command and control systems can cause loss of life, additional property damage and a delay in returning to normal.

The Incident Command System

Unified Command

The ICS remains the foundation of NIMS, and the heart of ICS is the concept of unified command, which is grounded in the leadership principle of "unity of command," a common military principle wherein each person within an organization reports to only one designated person. Whenever multiple jurisdictions and/or multiple agencies from within a jurisdiction respond to an incident, each brings its own chain of command. The ICS concept calls for responding agencies to join together in a unified command for the duration of the incident.

To facilitate unified command, agencies must adopt certain protocols. For instance, ICS calls for agencies to use common terminology when responding to an ICS-led incident, use a designated modular command structure and employ certain common command and control principles. Typically, agencies overcome differences in terminology by emphasizing communications in plain language. Codes such as the "10 system" are replaced with plain language. Although this may somewhat lengthen communications, under emergency circumstances, clarity trumps brevity.

Incident Command

The first step in returning any emergency situation to normal is someone taking charge. ICS is different from many other bureaucratic structures in that ICS calls for the most qualified person to assume responsibility over an incident. Imagine a police officer working a graveyard shift sees black smoke billowing against the night sky. The officer doesn't know where the fire is burning, but using the smoke as a landmark, navigates to the fire. Arriving before fire personnel, the officer must temporarily take charge. Although lacking firefighting equipment, the officer can make a situation report requesting fire personnel, begin evacuation, establish a perimeter and determine ingress and egress routes. That police officer is, at the beginning, the incident commander.

After the firefighters' arrival, the ranking firefighter, the most qualified person to lead the incident, becomes the incident commander (IC). This marks the beginning of a unified command. The police officer still maintains the perimeter and assists in keeping ingress and egress routes open but is essentially subordinate to the firefighter. Conversely, if the burning structure contained a sniper, the police officer would maintain incident command because the police officer is better equipped to handle the sniper.

Unified Command Advantages

• One set of objectives;
• Collective approaches;
• Improved information flow and coordination;
• Better understanding of objectives, priorities, limitations and restrictions;
• Uncompromised authority;
• Awareness of each agency's plans, actions and constraints; and
• Optimization of combined efforts.

Incident Command Post

With ICS, the location where the IC manages the emergency is called the incident command post (ICP). Widespread emergencies are often coordinated and managed through the use of a pre-designated facility commonly called an emergency operations center (EOC). Larger emergencies may have several field ICPs that are coordinated through an EOC. The EOC, receiving information from the ICP, coordinates the deployment of personnel and resources to the various ICPs. The ICPs use the personnel and resources to manage the incident locally. This is the type of arrangement we could have expected during the response to Hurricane Katrina a regional EOC managing the flow of personnel and resources to smaller EOCs or field ICPs.

All Incidents

ICS has proved effective for all types of incidents, including:

• Hazardous materials;
• Planned events;
• Natural disasters;
• Multi-agency law enforcement incidents, such as warrant services and complex investigations;
• Multiple casualties (major traffic collisions, fires, etc.); and
• Wide-area search and rescue missions.

Incident Command Structure

ICS is referred to as a modular system because it can expand and contract based on the emergency. If the problem can be handled with few personnel and minimal resources, then an ICP may have only an IC, who plans, makes decisions and assigns tasks. An emergency with only an IC would be relatively small and short in duration. However, as an emergency outgrows the ability of a single person, modules are added.

Usually the first module, or subordinate commander, added is an operations chief. This person must carry out the direction of the IC. The operations chief might direct additional assistant chiefs assigned either by the geography of the incident (e.g., an inner and outer perimeter) or by the types of services. Or, in the case of a relatively localized emergency, the operations chief might allocate subordinate commands based on duties. Example: At a local emergency you might have an operations chief in charge of a fire branch and another in charge of a law enforcement branch.

The next module added: the logistics chief. This person must obtain, organize and allocate all resources, such as personnel, equipment and supplies. For instance, during a flood the IC might direct the operations chief to conduct helicopter-rescue operations. The operations chief would communicate the personnel and equipment needs to the logistics chief. The logistics chief would locate and assign personnel and resources to the mission. The operations chief would brief the personnel on the mission and oversee completion.

Emergency situations are brought to conclusion by getting ahead of the emergency. This is done through the ICS planning process. For larger emergencies (based on size and duration), you need a planning chief. This person takes the overall goals of the IC and prepares action plans that are implemented by the operations chief. This component frees the operations chief to handle the here and now while someone else prepares for the next step.

Span of Control

ICS recognizes that you simply can't do everything yourself and that you can only effectively work directly with a limited number of people. While an IC may ultimately deploy thousands of personnel, they can communicate directly with relatively few. The span-of-control management concept stresses that a leader can directly supervise only a limited number of people. The number often cited is somewhere from 7 10. This same principle applies to all subordinate personnel. The operations chief has 7 10 direct reports, and so on, down the chain of command.

Certified Training

Many agencies are, in some form, adopting and training in NIMS/ICS. As a first responder, you can improve your incident leadership skills in at least two ways. First, seek certified training from the DHS. Any law officer can sign on and use the FEMA training tools to receive certified training in NIMS/ICS as well as a wide variety of disaster-related courses. Second, once you successfully complete these Web-based courses, an official certificate of completion is sent to you, and for those who receive certification, the U.S. Department of Labor provides a number of Web-based tutorials for refresher training, including an excellent overview of ICS. You can access the tutorials atwww.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/ics/. For information on how your agency should coordinate its training in NIMS/ICS with its grant seeking activities, go to the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Grants and Training Web page at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/odp/welcome.html.

Final Thoughts

We all know that situations do not unfold as clinically as I've described. We now know Hurricane Katrina was the most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history, and as the White House has acknowledged, the "nation's current incident management plans and procedures fell short of what was needed." The International Association of Fire Chiefs' President Bill Killen added in testimony before Congress, "Without exercises, learning the NIMS would be like learning to ride a bicycle by reading a book."

Clearly, training and practical exercises are key components of incident management. The closer we come to handling emergencies within the framework of ICS, the more lives and property we can save.

Lieutenant Raymond E. Foster, LAPD (ret.), MPA, owns Hi Tech Criminal Justice Online and wrote Police Technology (Prentice Hall), Leadership: Texas Hold 'em Style (Quill Driver/Word Dancer Press) and NYPD to LAPD: An Introduction to Policing (Prentice Hall). Contact him atraymond@hitechcj.com.

America’s ‘strategic learning disability’

By Philip Ewing Tuesday, August 30th, 2011 3:53 pm
Posted in Policy

Via one of the most reliable conduits of truth about the Army — the mysterious stick figure known only as Doctrine Man — here’s a very interesting writeup: Retired Army Lt. Gen. James Dubik has a piece in this month’s Army magazine called ‘A National Strategic Learning Disability?’ in which he wonders whether the United States has what it takes at the top leadership level in order to prosecute its national goals.
“Our national strategies and policies have dragged out operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, costing more in lives, sacrifices, money and political will than was necessary,” Dubik writes. The U.S. did not finish key jobs in Iraq or Afghanistan, he argues, because it mistakenly thought it had accomplished goals it hadn’t and didn’t have a full understanding of what it wanted. This leads him to ask four key questions: “Do we have the ability to construct and execute a coherent national strategy? Have we lost the ability to use force decisively? Do we confuse ending a war with an ‘exit strategy’ to leave a war? Do we lack strategic imagination?” Quick answers: Yes; yes; no; yes.
Still there? All right. If you want to keep reading, here’s much more elaboration: Dubik’s assessment about the American ability to contemplate and execute a master strategy is succinct but devastating, and it’s worth quoting in its entirety:

With respect to the war against al Qaeda, we have been out of balance from the start by not really deciding whether to treat al Qaeda as a war enemy or international criminals (it has elements of both) and overmilitarizing, at least initially, the strategy that we did execute. Finally, we have been out of balance from the start in that we have never figured out a way to pay for our operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and against al Qaeda—a key element of any national strategy.
In sum, for a decade our national strategy has been ineffective. Two strategically important results have emerged. First, American military forces have been at war, but for much of this period neither the government nor the nation has been at war. Second, we have spent blood, money and national reputation to not accomplish our strategic aims.

Nearly 10 years later, nobody remembers the voices after Sept. 11 that argued you can’t have a ‘war on terrorism,’ i.e., a tactic, and that cited examples in Europe and elsewhere where terrorists were treated as criminals, with a reactive, law enforcement-style approach, as opposed to an aggressive military campaign. But Americans were in payback mode and wanted revenge, so they did not want to just sit idle and settle for trying evildoers in court. (Many still don’t.) So the U.S. may have chosen the wrong strategy, but it can still build and execute one. Then again, there’s a case to be made that the current strategy of eliminating the threat posed by radical, anti-American Islam is flawed because it requires the impossible: eliminating an idea. At least in the Cold War, ‘containment’ was achievable. In fact, the West fared pretty well, even if there are a few stragglers here and there.
As for force, Dubik argues the U.S. has fallen into a trap of using the least amount possible, requiring commanders to re-learn the painful lesson that doing so doesn’t actually save you anything. “This apparent economy protracts war because it yields the strategic initiative to the enemy. They get to choose whether to ‘up the ante.’ In war, force should be applied in ways that reduce the options of one’s enemies and increase one’s own.” Presidents Bush and Obama eventually had no choice but to resort to “surges,” which appeared to help turn the tide in their respective wars.
This is the critical point: Wars are started by politicians, and the more troops in harm’s way, the more of a political risk to them. Sending more troops means there’s more of a chance average Americans might pay attention to what’s happening, also increasing the risk they might decide they oppose it. It’s just more effective politically to use the least you can of a comparatively small, volunteer force, especially when people ‘support the troops’ no matter what — just so long as they don’t have to do anything else, including sacrifice or serve.
As to Dubik’s next question, it’s difficult to confuse an ‘exit strategy’ with a legitimate end to a war. To return to his first point, the U.S. began its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without a specific, achievable end state in mind — a flawed strategy. Compare the state of Iraq today to 1991, when President George H.W. Bush set a discrete goal — eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait and eliminate them as a threat to their neighbors — and accomplished it deftly. It meant he endured slings and arrows from neoconservatives who wanted Saddam deposed, but in retrospect we can see its elegance: Iraq remained a stable, if hollow, version of its former self and a check on Iranian adventurism.
The current American withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan is about cutting losses and crossing fingers — both countries could devolve into violent anarchy within six months of the pullouts. But America is sick of war, broke and becoming resigned to the reality that after a decade and some $4 trillion, Iraq and Afghanistan are as good as they’re going to get. What stops insurgents from just hiding out until American troops are gone? How will both countries afford and maintain their U.S.-trained militaries over the long term? That would require perpetual commitments in both places, which some people support, but most Americans don’t.
Dubik’s final point is that commanders’ lack of ‘strategic imagination’ has continued to trip up military campaigns over the past decade, and will keep doing so unless the brass overcomes it. He writes:

Ten years of evidence that war has more than one form seems to have been insufficient to prompt adequate adaptation—domestically or internationally. Current discussions often find adherents claiming that the conflict in Libya isn’t a war, for example, or that war cannot be waged in cyberspace. Without adequate strategic imagination, America perpetually risks not only applying a strategy that does not match the specific enemy and situation of a given case, but also having a set of institutions and procedures equivalent to attempting to fit a round peg into a square hole. Thus we risk more examples of spending our strategic capital— lives, sacrifice, money and will—in not attaining our strategic aims.

This might be the toughest point of all — can you change culture? And can you change it quickly enough to respond to all of today’s threats?
What do you think?

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2011/08/30/americas-strategic-learning-disability/#ixzz1WvB7lMN9
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